Thursday, June 23, 2011

Bleach Pen Painting

We love this cute idea for painting negative images on t-shirts using bleach pens. You can quickly transform plain shirts into works of art. Our 6 and 9 year old both enjoyed the project and could do most of it themselves with a little help from mom.

What you need:

shirt

bleach pen

chalk

cutting board, cardboard or other item to place in shirt to keep bleach from bleeding through

Using the chalk, sketch out design on your shirt.Shake bleach pen well. Make sure it is flowing well by testing it on a scrap of paper. Then trace your chalk drawing. Jonah made a dragon.Let the bleach sit until you can see the shirt changing color. This should take from 10 min to 2 hours depending on the shirt. We found that shirts that were older and had been washed many times only took about 10 min. The new shirt we tried took a lot longer.Mom or Dad should carefully take out the cutting board and rinse the bleach out very well (try not to let the bleach sit too long on other parts of the shirt). Wash and dry as usual.

Ben designed a Lego shirt. Mom had a shirt that already had a big bleach stain on it. She made a zinnia with a few leaves to cover it up.You don't even notice the stain anymore! We all love our new shirts!

I've seen people using bleach pens for all sorts of super cute things. I'm afraid to try it though because regular bleach actually degrades cotton a lot (in my experiments at least!) Is there a difference when it's the gel in the pen form?

You can totally use dishwashing detergent instead, which is cheaper. Make sure to get the gel kind with bleach, I don't remember the brand. I put it in plastic ketchup bottles to squeeze out into the design.

About Us

We are Rebecca, Maggie, & Jill - busy women just like you who run after our active kids, try to clean the house once in a while, and manage to throw dinner together (even if it's just a bag of frozen chicken nuggets). But when we get the chance, we enjoy a good project. Something that entertains the kids, saves us a little money, is good for the earth, and even makes us feel pretty. And we want to share these ideas with you!
Enjoy!